The statistical bonanza at http://www.baseball-reference.com/ makes IAFD look like amateurs. Algorithms are employed to compare current baseball players with those of the past 100+ years.

Fer instance: Albert Pujols is comparable to Hank Greenberg*, Jimmie Foxx, and Joe DiMaggio, all of whom are faint, flickering legends for baseball fans, but given these statistical equivalences, closer to home.

*-Coke: he was Jewish, and of course, there was a movie made about him: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208261/

Roy Halladay: 158-84

Tim Hudson: 158-83
Barry Zito: 141-111
Mark Mulder: 103-60 (retired due to shoulder injury)

It's a fine line between SI Cover and aptitude.

dude you are THIS close to getting caged!

thanks for seeing the sense in yr fallibility

I trust that no one is clean in baseball anymore, but if Pujols is, he will go down as an immortal. Vlad Guerrero too. Pujols is like .333 lifetime and Vlad about .325. Those are unreal in this day. If either of them retired tomorrow they should be first ballot HOFers.

You'll also love Baseball Fever.

I take issue with those who attempt to use modern statistical methods to measure old timers. In Cobb's day, what counted was batting average, steals, and runs. That's what he led in. Ruth, homers. Wins and strikeouts for the old pitchers. That's what they tried to do, and the ones who did it well were always considered the best, and rightly so. Adam Dunn's OPS would have been lost back then, 200 K's a year would never have been allowed to happen. But give Dunn his due, too, as that's what the emphasis is on now.

I'd like to see Nolan Ryan have success stretching out these starting pitchers, I'd like to see more complete games, 250 inning seasons, I like to see good starters go the distance.

Easiest way to get around mediocre middle relief is to have durable starters that stay in the game.

Andre Dawson and Whitey Herzog going into the HOF today got me thinking. With all the new parks that have been built in the past decade or so, are there any baseball teams left that play on artificial turf?

Toronto is on their 3rd type of turf, but any others.

Tampa plays inside, so I assume they do.

Also, the Marlins play a few games in PR sometimes. That field is still artificial turf.

Yeah, Tampa plays on field turf w/ a dirt infield.

-Chuck, Vegetarian fanboy